Talk:Baby's in Black

Untitled
I took out references to 3/4 time, waltzes and "I'll Be Back," because they do not pertain directly to "Baby's In Black." JSC ltd 05:42, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

March 2007
Added citations for everything I could find in the article and added information about live performances and a cover version. The "sang into one microphone" was in the article but uncited. I have heard that before but can't find a cite. I left it in and I hope that someone else will find the citation for it. I've looked in MacDonald, Miles, Cross, Spitz (not indexed well, hard to search), Lewisohn (Sessions), Anthology, Harry. Can someone with Lewisohn's Chronicle check that?

Regarding 21 July comment above about 3/4 time, I think it's pertinent. McCartney refers to it as waltz time and 3/4 time even though it's clearly 6/8 and documented as such in reliable sources. He said at that point they were trying to use something other than 4/4 all the time and it works well in this song. I may add some of that to the article but not today. &mdash; John Cardinal 14:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I just checked the Chronicle for 11 August 1964. It just says they worked from 7 to 11 p.m. on John's "Baby's in Black", recording 14 takes and 13 attempts at the opening, none of which was used.&mdash;Dah31 (talk) 22:04, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

As to the time signature, while I can understand how controversy can arise, when for example Musicneo publish versions in 12/8, 6/8 and 3/4 time (e.g., Musicneo.com: Baby's In Black 3/4 time), I don't understand the insistence here on Baby's in Black being in 6/8 time, especially as no 'reliable source' has in fact been cited to support the choice of 6/8. This reliable source http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/bib.shtml puts the time signature as 3/4.

This is what McCartney himself had to say:"'Baby's In Black' we did because we liked waltz-time," McCartney continued. "We'd used to do 'If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody,' (by James Ray in 1961) a cool three-four blues thing. And other bands would notice that and say, 'Shit man, you're doing something in three-four.' So we'd got known for that...It's ("Baby's In Black") in 3/4 time, one of the first waltzes we wrote, which was interesting for us because most of our stuff's in 4/4." (https://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/babys-in-black/)

I'd like to think the Beatles' bassist would have a better idea of the time signature of the song he not only wrote but performed regularly in concert than, say, an anonymous copy editor at Hal Leonard. Redpaul1 (talk) 15:57, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Credit
Like in the entry for the album 'Beatles for Sale', someone has decided to spread doubt about the writing credit for this song. Of course, it IS credited to Lennon/McCartney, but I see no reason whatsoever to include the line 'as described by some as mainly Lennon's work', as both Lennon and McCartney, in their respective interviews, have been very clear that it was a 50/50 collaboration.(Lennon: Playboy(1980); McCartney: 'Many Years From Now'(auto-)biography(1997))

If some describe it as mainly the work Lennon's, it would be nice to know who those 'some' are, and even then their accounts don't carry any weight whatsoever, since the co-authors are on a 100% agreement about the facts. Shame! --84.208.224.234 (talk) 06:13, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

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Agreed. Both these sources https://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/babys-in-black/ & http://www.beatlesebooks.com/babys-in-black contain well-sourced accounts of the collaboration between Lennon & McCartney on this song. Redpaul1 (talk) 15:49, 17 July 2020 (UTC)